INTRODUCTION

SOONER OR later
every student of Scripture, if he has any confidence whatever
in its authority, tries to make a decision as to the extent of
Noah's Flood. Perhaps as much as anything because childhood imaginings
are unrestrained by the existence of any physical limitations,
most of us who have known the story even vaguely have tended
to start with the impression that it was world-wide. Any subsequent
suggestion that it might have been of limited extent has seemed
only an expression of unbelief. It is not, in a way, that the
incident is fundamental to Faith in the sense that the Virgin
Birth or the Physical Resurrection of our Lord is. Yet it is
important to have some fairly clear idea of the real nature of
the event. From the point of view of the course of human history,
it was either a local incident not greatly affecting the rest
of the world's people, or it was a total break in the thread
of man's cultural development. Present reconstructions of prehistoric
times make no allowance for it. What did really happen?To settle
the issue to the satisfaction of everyone will surely be an impossible
task, and it is even doubtful if there is much that can be said
on the subject that could make any serious claims to originality.
However, there are a few things that, as far as I know, have
not been noted in the vast body of literature which the debate
has called forth. And it may also help to illustrate a little
more completely than is customary, by reference to other parts
of Scripture, the extent to which hyperbole is used with somewhat
more restricted meaning than might normally be allowed in English
literature. The reader of any one of the commoner versions now
available cannot help but be impressed with the insistence of
the record upon the total destruction and magnitude of the Flood.
It is far easier to believe that the writer intended the reader
to understand that the waters really did rise 30,000 feet above
sea level to cover the highest mountain tops.
Yet how could he know this? It
is easy to say that it was revealed to him by the same God who
had warned him of the catastrophe before it came. Revelation
of the extent would be no more

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difficult than the revelation
involved in the forewarning. But in reading the account in Genesis
there is every evidence that this is the record of a man who
simply set down his daily observations in the form of a ship's
log. There is no room in the account, once the Flood began, for
the element of revelation, at least insofar as the literary form
is concerned. If, therefore, Noah was told that the whole globe
had been submerged at this time, to a depth of over fifteen cubits
-- a fact quite beyond his power of observation -- it seems certain
that he would have indicated this in some way. The figure "fifteen
cubits" was surely derived from observation, not from revelation.
It is not customary in the Old
Testament for any godly man to claim as the fruit of his own
understanding or observation that which was in fact a subject
of revelation. Noah does not say that the Lord revealed it to
him.
This will indicate to the reader
that the view presented in this paper is of a limited Flood,
albeit a Flood which wiped out the whole human race save for
Noah and his family. All we can hope to do is to show the evidence
for the view presented, while acknowledging the opinion of those
who, in all sincerity and by no means in ignorance of the laws
of physics, have argued to the contrary.
Broadly speaking, it can be said
that views about the Flood tend to group themselves in four general
categories. There are those who believe that the Flood was global
and covered the highest mountain chains on earth, destroying
every breathing thing except what was preserved in the ark. Then
there are those who believe that the story represents the exaggerated
recollection of a small group of people who suffered very heavy
loss while the rest of the world went merrily on its way. There
are those who discredit the story entirely as a kind of fictional
creation of some early myth-maker. And finally, there are those
who believe that a divine judgment upon mankind brought a Flood
of sufficient proportions to wipe out the human race, still not
very widely dispersed, except for one favored family who was
warned beforehand. We are presenting the final view.